1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a three-dimensional (3D) image reproduction.
2. Description of the Related Art
In stereoscopy, the illusion of depth in a three-dimensional (3D) image is achieved via binocular parallax. That is, the apparent difference in the position of an object as seen separately by the human eyes placed at a distance of approximately 65 mm from each other. When two two-dimensional (2D) images of the same object seen by the eyes of a person are transferred to the brain via the retina, the brain merges the 2D images and uses the differences between the images to reconstruct the third dimension (i.e., depth) and obtain a 3D image. Such a phenomenon is called stereography.
Methods of displaying a 3D image include methods requiring special glasses, requiring no special glasses, holographic displaying, etc.
Methods of displaying a 3D image that require no special glasses may be classified into parallax barrier methods, in which images are separated and observed via apertures having a longitudinal lattice shape for each image corresponding to the left and right eyes, and lenticular methods, in which a lenticular plate on which semi-cylindrical lenses are arranged is used.
An apparatus for reproducing a 3D image using the parallax barrier method generates a 3D image by separately displaying stereo images for the left and right eyes. In the parallax barrier method, a user perceives a 3D image by providing a sufficient parallax effect by overlapping longitudinal or latitudinal openings having slit shapes on a flat image for displaying image information for the right and left eyes.